South Burlington City Council held a special meeting Friday to publicly respond to 10,700-signature petition and reaffirms opposition to new jets at Vermont guard base

Nov. 23, 2012

Written by

Free Press Staff Writer

SOUTH BURLINGTON — The South Burlington City Council voted Friday in a special meeting to make public its response to pro-F-35A petitions circulated by business groups and an ad-hoc organization, Friends of the Air Guard.

In October those groups gathered 10,700 signatures across the region supporting the basing of the new-generation warplane at the airport. A similar petition with 1,600 signatures was presented to the South Burlington City Council in June.

The council reaffirmed its opposition to the proposal Friday.

Council Chairwoman Rosanne Greco said the council also has received an online petition in favor of the F-35A basing from the State Chamber of Commerce. That petition, she said, had no signatures and no text; rather, she said, it provided a list of typed names of purported supporters of bringing the planes to Burlington.

The South Burlington City Council has opposed the basing in large part because of concerns about noise from the planes. An Air-Force sponsored environmental study released last spring in draft form (the DEIS), predicted that nearly 3,000 additional people near the airport would find themselves living with average day-night sound levels of 65 decibels or higher — a level the Federal Aviation Administration terms “unsuitable” for residences.

The council says that population figures from the 2010 census indicate the affected households would be “several thousand” greater than the environmental study estimates based on the 2000-census,

The petitions gathered signatures from well beyond the affected neighborhoods in Burlington, South Burlington, Williston and Winooski.

“Based upon the Air Force’s published DEIS and the facts contained therein,” the petition circulated by the Greater Burlington Industrial Corp. said, “we believe that the economic benefits and national security concerns far outweigh any real or perceived negatives ...”

Vermont’s congressional delegation, Gov. Peter Shumlin and Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger support basing the new plane at the airport.

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In its response letters, drafted by Greco, the council said it “carefully analyzed” the Air Force’s environmental study and “based our response not on subjective opinions, but rather on the facts” contained in the study.

The council objected to the title on the petitions, “Save the Guard,” and said that the future of the Vermont Air National Guard is not in question and that any implication that the Air Guard base would lose jobs if the F-35A is not based here is false, since the F-16 currently based at the airport “is projected to fly” to 2030.

The council also rejected the petition’s contention that any increased noise from the F-35A wouldn’t be “overly burdensome” and said the continuing need of the airport to purchase homes near the airport demonstrates that noise “has already passed levels of acceptability to our community.”

The council, citing figures from the environmental study, says that projected noise levels from the new planes and its effect on children would be onerous, and it also points to the risks of basing a new plane in a heavily populated areas, arguing that “new military aircraft crash more frequently than older aircraft.”

The council took exception to the petition’s conclusion that the council is “wrong” to oppose the plane’s basing in Burlington. “We do not believe that it is ever wrong to speak up for our residents and our community,” the council’s letter said.

Councilor Pam Mackenzie, who has supported the F-35A basing in Burlington, did not attend Friday’s five-minute meeting, held at the table in the lobby of city hall. The explanatory council letters were supported by Greco, Vice-Chairwoman Helen Riehle, Sandra Dooley (participating by phone) and Paul Engels.